Assessment of exploited marine fishery resources through the estimation of marine fish landings all along the Indian coast.Developing management advisories through periodic stock assessment of important marine fish stocks of India for sustained production from the sea.Revalidation of marine fisheries potential and optimum fleet size for the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and fishery forecasting through modellingDevelop models and software for fish stock assessment, fishery forecasting and statistical analysis of fishery data Geo-referencing of major marine resources using satellite derived data and models.Quinquennial Census of fishers, fishing crafts and gears.

Ongoing Research Projects:

a. In-house projects :

GIS based management advisory support information system for the marine fisheries sector

Strengthening of Database and GIS for the fisheries sector - Marine Fisheries Census 2015 (Component of the Central Sector Scheme of the Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India.

Determination of the conservation value of the mangroves of Kerala : Resource assessment , economic evaluation and geo-referencing of mangrove patches along Kerala coast - MoEF

Completed Research Projects (last plan period):

a. In-house Projects

Development of knowledge based information system for marine fisheries sustainability

The development and refinement of National Marine Fishery database using “Stratified Multistage Random Sampling”, a method unique to India. With this methodology, the Institute is continuously updating and maintaining the national marine fisheries database since 1950, which comprises data of more than 1200 species landed along the entire coast. This information forms the vital input for fish stock assessment periodically carried out by the Institute to develop management measures for sustained marine fish production. Also, data form the database is used by policy planners, fishery managers, sea food exporters and research organizations.

Conducts the National Marine Fisheries Census and developed a comprehensive census database published in the form of 11 reports (10 with respect to the 9 maritime states, one Union Territory and one summary report). These data are widely consulted by all the maritime states, government and non-government organizations involved in fisheries research.

Carried out Stock Assessment of different commercially marine fish species using six decades data (1950-2010) on landings by classifying the resources into 26 groups on a national level reviled that 18 resources groups fall under ‘abundant’ class, 5 fall under ‘less abundant’ class and 1 each fall under ‘declining’, ‘depleted’ and ‘collapsed’ classes.

Derived Potential Yield and Optimum Fleet Size for the maritime states West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra and Gujarat as part of the task assigned by the committee constituted by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Developed the national database on marine fishery resources with information on species wise, gear wise and fishing zone wise landings and fishing effort. Digitized historical information on catch and effort of marine fishery resources.

Developed Computer Software for processing marine fish landings data, estimation of individual species level landings and exporting of information into RDBMS database. Also, statistical tools were developed for time series forecasting, stock assessment, multivariate analysis and optimization using genetic algorithm.

Fish Watch- a new system of field information dissemination on a near real time basis. The fish landing figures and landing centre price range of important resources at 6 major fishing harbours of the country published as “Fish Watch” in CMFRI website on a daily basis since 2010.

Trawl ban- Data on marine fishery resources FRA datasets and inputs from all capture fisheries divisions of CMFRI in association with other research organizations and associations /NGOs are able to close the mechanized fishing for 47 days on both the coasts and the DADF of MoA is able to successfully implement the ban.

Management advisories/Policy Documents were developed for maritime states such as Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu helping in sustainable development of marine fisheries in these states.

Using catch and effort time series of four categories of marine fishery resources, possible influence of fishery regulations like trawl ban was studied for all the maritime states of the country for the committee constituted by the Ministry of Agriculture to review the centrally implemented fishing regulations along east and west coast of the country.